Oreo, Audi & Walgreens Newsjack Super Bowl “Blackout Bowl”

Thanks to super-fast reactions, at least three brands were able to “newsjack” the power outage that hit the Super Bowl early in the third quarter of today’s game.

With the Ravens up by a score of 28-6, and a 49ers third-down play just about to begin, the lights inside the stadium went out, causing a somewhat lengthy delay that’s still ongoing as I type this.

Several brands saw the power outage as a chance to market themselves in clever ways on Twitter, which is no doubt experiencing new, all-time usage levels for a sporting event.

Oreo, which ran a commercial earlier in the TV broadcast that promoted its Instagram account, reacted quickly with this brilliant power outage-related tweet that’s been retweeted and favorited thousands of times in only about 15 minutes:

Audi, another Super Bowl TV advertiser, also reacted quickly with a tweet that took a jab at Mercedes-Benz (@MBUSA), its competitor that holds the naming rights to the Superdome. It’s also been faved and retweeted several thousand times:

That’s quick response from some major brands, and a good way to “newsjack” a huge event like the Super Bowl — especially the Oreo example, which is just brilliant on all counts. (Newsjacking is a term popularized by David Meerman-Scott to describe the process of inserting your thoughts/ideas into breaking news events.)

Postscript: In the comments below, on Twitter, and via email, several other examples have been shared with us. I’m not sure that all examples of a brand that tweeted about or during the blackout are “newsjacking,” but here are a few more that are worth including (and thanks to all who shared these with us):

As you can see, some of these resonated on Twitter much more than others. The Seattle Police Department’s tweet captured much more engagement than Hyundai tweeting out its Super Bowl commercial and Cars.com tweeting about its commercial, for example. (The “c-link” reference in the Seattle PD tweet is a reference to the nickname for Century Link Field, the Seahawks’ home stadium.)

No doubt this “blackout bowl” episode and all the attempts at newsjacking will be the subject of countless articles, studies and presentations in the future.

About The Author

Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.